Coffeehouse owner hopes her success percolates through a neighborhood 'on the cusp'

Mar. 24, 2013

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Tina Stoeberl, owner of College Hill Coffee Co., at her shop. / The Enquirer/jeff swinger

Passion for place

At The Enquirer we’re exploring how certain places have shaped our community personality, what we might learn from them and what some neighborhoods need to be healthy for next generations. Let us know what places you have passion for, your concerns and hopes for those places. If you are getting things done in your community and would like to write about your big idea, we’d like to hear about that, too. Email Cliff Radel at cradel@enquirer.com.

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Tina Stoeberl aims to revitalize College Hill one cup of coffee at a time. For seven years, her shop, College Hill Coffee Co. and Casual Gourmet, has been perking along, serving as a destination point, community gathering spot and idea incubator at the busy intersection of Hamilton Avenue and North Bend Road.

In an economy where slow sales forced Starbucks to close 900 outlets, College Hill Coffee Co. continues to thrive. And support neighborhood redevelopment.

The coffeehouse has undergone three expansions and added a 30-seat patio. At the same time, Stoeberl spearheaded efforts to fill the empty storefronts on her block and foster a bustling nightlife on the weekends. She regularly promotes College Hill to customers as a place to live, fall in love, raise a family, find a solid house “with lots of bang for your buck,” shop and sip a cup of the smoothest house-blend coffee in town.

After a recent hectic Thursday afternoon of busing lunch-trade tables, cleaning restrooms and setting up a display of Rookwood pottery (the Coffee Co. is the first suburban retail outlet for the iconic Made-in-Cincinnati brand), Stoeberl took a well-deserved break. She eased into a seat at a corner table overlooking the crosswalk at Hamilton and North Bend. Over a bottle of IBC root beer, “no coffee right now,” and between occasional glances at the traffic outside, she talked with The Enquirer about her plans for the coffeehouse and her hopes for College Hill.

QUESTION: The shops on your block, built in the 1930s, are booming. The estaurants are packed with diners. There’s music on the weekend. Foot traffic fills the sidewalk. Yet, just down the street storefronts are shuttered and await the wrecking ball. What does this say about the neighborhood?

ANSWER: College Hill is on the cusp. Has been for years. Lots of mom-and-pop shops packed up and moved on or just closed. Those vacant buildings have been acquired, after many years of hard work, by the College Hill Community Urban Redevelopment Corp. for mixed-use development. They will be demolished, and the right stores for the neighborhood, with buildings that fit the existing architecture, will take their place. Sitting here, I’m looking out on the second-busiest intersection in Cincinnati in the fourth-largest neighborhood in the city. College Hill has been struggling. Be we are committed to making things better.

Q: What kind of magic potion are you brewing to make the Coffee Co. succeed in an economy that is not coffeehouse-friendly?

A: We have seen constant growth through one of the worst recessions. And everything here is fluff. Nobody has to have anything I sell. Still, people love this place. They say it’s so European. They say “it’s like it’s not in Cincinnati.” At the same time, it belongs to the neighborhood. The work here is damned hard. There are always 10 things going on . It’s like having triplets with colic. But I love it. We recently added 25 spots to our parking lot. But you’d never know because we are out of parking spaces. I have signs hanging up that say: “Additional Parking, just across the street.” That is a good problem . We have become a destination as well as a neighborhood gathering place.

Q: Even a cartoonist, Julie Larson of “The Dinette Set,” from Lincoln, Ill., found her way to the Coffee Co. She put the coffeehouse in comics. Seven original strips, signed, dated, framed and starring the coffee shop hang on the Coffee Co.’s walls. How did this association begin?

A: Fate. I did not know Julie Larson before the Coffee Co. appeared in “The Dinette Set.” Never read the comic strip. She had heard about us. Her daughter was in town, stopped by, ordered some food and coffee, and took a mug home . Next thing I knew, my phone was ringing at 5:30 a.m., and the previous owner was screaming she had just seen the coffee shop on The Enquirer’s comics page. ■